Shopping cart abandonment rates are inflated by a group called hedonic shoppers, and they fill carts for much different reasons than normal utilitarian shoppers.

The bad news is you won’t capture sales from most hedonic shoppers by A/B testing your checkout process.

But by understanding hedonic motivations, you can build a relationship with these shoppers and eventually convert them to valuable customers. It just takes a bit of effort and creativity.

In this post, we’ll discuss:

The differences between hedonic and utilitarian shoppers

Why hedonic shoppers inflate cart abandonment rates

Strategies and tools for converting hedonic shoppers

So let’s tuck in.

Hedonic vs. utilitarian shopping

According to research, people have two primary shopping motivations: hedonic and utilitarian.

Utilitarian shopping is all about actual need and function. We need clothes, we need food, we need dental floss — and utilitarian motives drive these needs. (My dentist recently advised me to “only floss the ones you want to keep.” Good one, dentist).

Hedonic shopping stirs emotional arousal within us — both physiological and psychological. The individual is deeply involved in the satisfaction of shopping, and the higher the level of involvement, the greater the level of hedonism experienced by the shopper.

Hedonic shopping is driven by desire for fun & entertainment; we do it because we’re jerks.Click To Tweet

Kind of makes us sound like a pack of lunatics, doesn’t it? There’s actually a more innocent explanation.

Online, hedonic shoppers are free to fulfill their motives without the inconvenience, distance barriers, embarrassment and time constraints of traditional brick-and-mortar shopping.

Hedonic shopping and virtual cart abandonment

The web is a playground of escapism for hedonic shoppers. And within this playground, websites provide the stimuli they’re looking for.

The web is a playground of escapism for hedonic shoppers, where websites provide the stimuli #CROClick To Tweet

This stimulation means the hedonically motivated shopper doesn’t need to complete the transaction. The shopping experience itself was the outcome they desired. They don’t need to buy to get satisfaction; they need only browse.

Hedonic shoppers need not buy to get satisfaction; they need only browse #CRO #CartAbandonmentClick To Tweet

Because of this, the effects of hedonic shopping manifest themselves most noticeably in shopping cart abandonment.

Despite placing items in shopping carts, the majority of online shoppers are quick to abandon carts without a moment’s hesitation.

Conventional wisdom tells us cart abandonment results from breakdowns in the purchasing stage. But hedonic shopping theory counters that many carts are abandoned because the consumer is satisfied — they’ve had their fun.

To dig deeper, let’s look at the most common reasons customers give for abandoning shopping carts, as per a 2013 Shopify survey.

Looks like the usual suspects, (i.e., a list of utilitarian motivations). But wait…

Oh you were just browsing were you, you depraved little hedonists!?

Yes, we know your game. Abandoning your cart as part of some twisted charade, laughing as site owners wrack their brains for answers.

But perhaps there’s more to it. Here’s another interesting survey of shopping cart abandoners:

Taking a closer look, we can identify three main groups of shopping cart abandoners: process abandoners, utilitarian abandoners and hedonic abandoners.

In both surveys, we see a hedonic motive appear second on the list, with various utilitarian motives near the top. Further down, we see that process issues are cited less frequently. Since hedonic abandoners seem to leave carts regardless of price and functionality, what can site owners do to capture value from them? Aren’t they bound to leave no matter what?

The answer is yes and no. Yes, hedonic shoppers are likely to abandon on their first visit. But no, that doesn’t mean they can’t be converted to customers.

And if you can fulfill their motivations, you will convert them. Hedonic shoppers can be some of your most valuable customers, so it’s worth putting in the effort to engage them. Like any potential sales lead, there’s value to capture.

It just takes a little longer.

Extending your engagement with hedonic shoppers

So the question now is obvious: How do we engage hedonic shoppers beyond that initial joyride?

To extend the engagement — and build a mutually beneficial relationship — you must:

Get an email address or other means of contact

Remarket to hedonic cart abandoners through triggered emails

Promise hedonic shoppers more of the rich, engaging experiences they desire within your emails

Let’s tackle email first.

No matter what type of hedonic shopper frequents your website (and bloats your shopping cart abandonment rate), you must be able to stay in contact in order to build the relationship.

Post-abandonment emails provide fertile ground for continuing the story you began telling hedonic shoppers on your website, and carrying that momentum toward establishing a customer relationship.

Take every opportunity you can to build your email list. Promise shoppers more of what they want — engaging shopping environments, new ideas, great value — by signing up for regular updates.

The second part of the equation is engagement.

Engagement is defined as the quality of user experience as a measurement of Focused Attention, Perceived Usability, Endurability, Novelty, Aesthetics, and Felt Involvement.

These 6 factors are critical to engaging all shoppers. The difference is how these vehicles work. Novelty, for example, means something different to different shoppers.

To be successful, marketers must address these motivations on their landing pages. But when dealing with hedonic shoppers, it’s not quite enough — you’re going to need to get a bit more creative and appeal to these motivations throughout the entire remarketing process.

When an adventure shopper receives your triggered follow-up email, for example, you must convey an exciting shopping experience to come.

With novelty shoppers, you should promise a certain measure of exclusivity, something not everyone has access to already.

So accounting for the six hedonic shopping motives, here are some ideas you can employ to engage these shoppers and extend the relationship.

4. Idea Shoppers

Play to the motivations of idea shoppers by implying they’ll be the first to jump on new trends such as tech developments, fashion ideas or food trends

Include a newsletter signup with a strong callout box to capture email addresses, and newsletter content that plays to the idea shopper’s motivations

Focus your headlines and email subject lines on ideas and creativity; remember that novelty is the key engagement driver for these shoppers

5. Role shoppers

Key engagement driver: Felt involvement

Role shoppers are stimulated by the act or idea of purchasing for others. To increase engagement with them, test out these ideas:

Focus on targeted messaging; examples could include “Pick one up for the kids” or “The in-laws will love it”

Try using imagery reflecting the joys of gift-giving and sharing

Create a friendly, people-focused design that relies on imagery of people using and enjoying the product with friends; stress the social aspects of products you sell in your copy

6. Value Shoppers

Key engagement driver: Novelty, felt involvement

If there’s any group of users perfectly suited to an email campaign, it’s value shoppers. Groupon built their entire empire off this strategy, and one could argue the majority of their customers are hedonically motivated value shoppers.

The tools you use to build email lists depend on your business, but here are three that should be part of every marketer’s toolbox:

1. Landing pages

Unlike home pages, landing pages focus on a single conversion goal, whether to warm visitors up to make a purchase or to collect their email addresses in exchange for something they want, such as an ebook, white paper or coupon code.

Landing pages don’t have all the leaks found on your typical home page, so the attention ratio is 1:1. That is, there’s only one goal and therefore only one call to action on the page. In the words of Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner: “One page. One purpose. Period.”

Test after test has shown the conversion benefits of landing pages, making them an indispensable tool to build your email list.

2. Exit-intent technology

An exit-intent tool measures users’ mouse movements to detect abandoning visitors. When an abandoning user is detected, an exit overlay is activated to engage the user one last time to convince the user to stick around, make a purchase, or sign up.

An exit overlay from BabyAge.com, activated when the user begins to abandon their shopping cart

Exit overlays (driven by exit-intent technology) are particularly effective for building cart abandoner email lists because they a) only activate when the user is about to abandon the page, and b) can be targeted at cart abandoners specifically.

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I am a web designer from NJ who loves getting involved with new web project. I have also have a burning passion for digital marketing and hope to bring out an info product on web design in the near future :)